Since the launch of Destiny 2, the Eververse has lost more and more significance. Nowadays, the in-game shop has reached a point where it is basically no longer needed, says our author Sven. But what will happen to Tess’s store?
What was the problem with the Eververse? The Eververse caused quite a stir in the early days of Destiny 2. Numerous items like Sparrows or Ghosts, which could be found in Destiny 1’s regular loot pool, were initially only available through the Eververse.
While players could also obtain Eververse Engrams through gameplay back then, it took an extremely long time and the rewards were heavily based on luck. Often, players felt almost forced to spend real money.
Later it came out that there was an EXP problem in Destiny: players received less EXP than shown. As a result, cosmetic items were rarely available. Bungie themselves later said that this process made them appear as “greedy fools”.
Additionally, the selection in the in-game shop was almost larger than the loot pool of the “Curse of Osiris” DLC.
How the Eververse has changed since the launch: Due to loud and ongoing protests from the players, Bungie pulled the emergency brake and redesigned the unpopular cash shop in early 2018. Since then, the Eververse has been continuously weakened and has lost significance. Here are the main changes:
- Items such as Ghosts or Sparrows have been integrated as rewards for specific activities and are no longer only available through the Eververse.
- The Prisma Matrix was introduced. This system allows players to specifically hunt for certain items from a limited weekly pool.
- Players can now earn 9 or more Eververse Engrams (3 per character) weekly with relatively little effort through special character boosts – purely through gameplay. From this, players receive almost all items from the regular Eververse selection.
- Some of the most valuable items, such as ornaments, no longer drop as duplicates.
- For special events like Dawning, the Crimson Days, or the Solstice of Heroes, there is a knockout system. You will not receive duplicates of event items from the event loot pool until you have received everything at least once.
- The Eververse now even offers its own bounties, rewarding players with Glimmer for relatively simple tasks that can be easily completed on the side. This is a currency that can be used to buy most items directly.
- Only a very few selected items can only be purchased with real money.
- With the introduction of collections, players can easily dismantle numerous Eververse items without losing them completely. This gave many players a nice stock of Glimmer, which they can then spend on new items in the Eververse. It has become easier overall to obtain Glimmer.
Therefore, the Eververse has become unnecessary: All these changes have ultimately led to the fact that the Eververse is no longer a real cash shop and does not make sense in its current form.
Tess Everis’s store has, in my opinion, become completely irrelevant from an economic standpoint, as you basically no longer have to spend any money there. Most content can now be easily obtained or purchased with Glimmer.
There are only very few items that actually need to be purchased with real money. And even those do not differ qualitatively much from the other content and provide hardly any incentives for a real-money purchase. So you have a store that still offers microtransactions, but which hardly anyone needs anymore.
What will happen to the Eververse? In its current state, Bungie should either completely abandon the cash shop model and integrate all Eververse items into the game or make them available only through engrams and Glimmer, or fill the shop with new ideas.
If Destiny 2 distanced itself from the microtransactions, which currently hardly play a role, it would be a clear signal toward the community and would also create a round player experience where all the loot can actually be obtained in the game. This would be a significant step for Destiny 2.
However, it is unlikely that this will happen. Without additional digital revenue, it seems that Destiny 2 does not function well enough – at least from the publisher’s perspective. So the Eververse will likely not remain as it is for much longer.
Destiny 2 apparently falls short of expectations in terms of numbers. The publisher Activision stated this during an earnings call and announced in the same breath that they will supply Destiny 2 with new content more quickly and introduce new forms of monetization. Whether the new Annual Pass model will be enough is, in my opinion, to be doubted.
I personally firmly believe that Destiny 2, in light of this statement, will increasingly rely on the Eververse in the future – whether in the context of a possible free-to-play model with a focus on the in-game store featuring completely new features that will be exclusively and only available for real money through the Eververse. However, these would have to be content for which players would be willing to spend real money.
It is conceivable that the Eververse, in addition to the Annual Pass model, offers cosmetic features such as housing within the spaceships or extensive cosmetic adjustments of the character – in the form of additional and subsequent options in the character editor.
Many fans have already wished for this in Destiny 1.
Housing would be something I would be willing to spend a few euros on. The new feature Temporal Wave is also in the same vein. I would willingly spend money on a direct purchase for a cool emote.
It will definitely be exciting to see what Destiny 2 does with the Eververse. Because as nice as it would be – apparently it doesn’t seem possible without a cash shop.
But it won’t be easy for Bungie and Activision. The Eververse itself has currently reached a point where it is redundant as an in-game store, but is still accepted and seen as fair by many players.
A renewed focus on the cash shop could backfire. However, I believe it is unlikely that the in-game shop will remain in its current state for much longer.
What do you think? Does the shop in its current form make any sense to you? What will happen to the Eververse?
